


Promises to Keep

by whenden



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Canon Related, Dean Prays, Hell, M/M, Purgatory, crazy!Cas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-25
Updated: 2013-10-25
Packaged: 2017-12-30 09:50:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,064
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1017153
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whenden/pseuds/whenden
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel leaves Dean alone in Purgatory and is faced with Dean's prayers to him.  Contains Hell/Purgatory parallels.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Promises to Keep

**Author's Note:**

> First time actually posting something over here! It's mildly confusing. Anyway! Inspired to write immediately after going to bed, so I ended up staying awake and writing much more than I usually do. I hope you all enjoy and please feel free to leave feedback!

The woods are lovely yet, in some absurd twist, they reek of death. The colors are muted, an ethereal quality clinging to every shadow, showing just how pure this place can be. It is a false sense of beauty. What lurks in those dark corners is the truth to these haunted woods. Each whistle of wind, every rustle of leaves, the obscenely loud snap of a twig. That is when it becomes clear that this place is not as serene as it would lead one to believe.

I heard his call the moment I left him standing in that clearing. It clutched at every fiber of my being, rang in my ears and tried to pull me back to him. I couldn't stay. I couldn't stand and fight, for if I fought beside him, he would be in even more danger. Better to be left among the abominations that we landed in the midst of than to be with me.

I thought leaving him was hard enough, but after he fought his way through them tooth and nail, I heard his prayers. He didn't voice them out loud, he chanted them in his head in a ringing symphony of anger, every syllable laced with such vehemence I could almost imagine him right beside me.

He shouted my name as he tread over each fallen monster and I felt the desperation rattle my bones.

I stopped long enough to think I should go back to him.

But then they were upon me and I knew without a moments thought that Dean could make it on his own, without me. He was strong, capable, and I had already put too much on him. I couldn't possibly go back and let him help me out of this. I couldn't possibly ask him to sacrifice more for me than what he already had. I couldn't possibly put him in more danger when it was my head that the Leviathans were after.

So I ignored his prayers. I pushed them to the back of my mind and when they settled down to thought-filled pleas I thought I would simply break. Dean's prayers started as angry tangents and slowly melted and dissolved into hysteric, sleep-deprived pleas for my return.

Then finally he uttered the words.

_Cas, I need you._

At first he only thought them. He begged me, from the small comfort of his own mind, to come back to him and I pushed them down and away. I needed him, too. I needed to see that he was alright, I needed to keep him safe, but I knew that the most help I could offer was simply to leave him be.

Dean didn't understand, though. How could he, when I had never explained? And the words he voiced rang out, clear as Church bells in my own head, nearly suffocated me.

_Please, Cas, just. We can do this together, man! Where are you?_

I was falling. Falling into the Leviathans' traps more often than I should have. Into the realization that Dean was no longer just Dean Winchester the Righteous Man. He was more than that. A thousand years could have passed and I wouldn't have known, because I was hanging on to every word that spilled past his lips.

He told me he had help, he had a way out. He told me he was coming to get me.

When he told me that, I pushed his prayers away once more. I didn't deserve to be saved. How could I make him understand? I had done wrong. I had lost his trust, I had nearly brought a new and uncalled for Apocalypse to the Earth, I had slain my brothers and sisters. I had done too much to simply be saved by the Righteous Man. I deserved to be on the run in a land full of abominations, I deserved much worse.

The only good I had done in centuries was to save Dean Winchester, to help stop the end of the world. Everything else I needed to pay penance for.

Dean's prayers grew more desperate each day. The words he spoke out loud were guarded, but those that he thought were filled to the brim with a sadness so profound that if they had wanted they could have clipped my wings and left me bound to the ground for an eternity.

They made me think of fighting for him in Hell. How each day that I fought I could hear him louder and louder, begging for mercy, salvation, and Sam. His prayers made me remember how I finally found him. Broken and beaten, taking it out on people that he had worked to save. I had gripped him tight and pulled him against me in Perdition. I had wiped away the blood and tears and I raised him up and I knew what pure joy felt like as I announced to my brothers that I had saved the Righteous Man.

I knew in Hell that I would walk the Earth over a million times for Dean Winchester.

I knew hearing his prayers in Purgatory that I would do whatever it took for Dean Winchester.

I knew he was tearing Purgatory apart for me, but I kept running. From him and the Leviathan, I kept flying away, trying to save Dean, trying to forgive myself. He had found a way out and I thought that if he couldn't find me that he would give up, turn around, leave me here to pay for my sins and go find the exit he prayed about.

He was getting closer, though. He was slicing through the monsters that wanted his head faster than I could outrun him. His prayers were becoming more adamant, more focused, his words were louder, closer, and then finally he was there.

He was there and he was pulling me against himself like I had done for him so long ago in Hell. I knew the joy he felt, I didn't need his prayers whispering and telling me. He had fought through Purgatory to find me just like I had fought through Hell to find him. Dean had plans to save me, just like I had plans to save him. The woods are full of monsters yet, in some absurd twist, they pulse with life, a certain purity that I am unsure I will ever see again.


End file.
